


Anonymous Tips

by starrypawz



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 06:27:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13969281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrypawz/pseuds/starrypawz
Summary: Anonymous Tips,That’s what they’d come to him as, Anonymous Tips but it didn’t take Nick long to work out they weren’t exactly ‘Anonymous’.





	Anonymous Tips

Anonymous Tips,

That’s what they’d come to him as, Anonymous Tips but it didn’t take Nick long to work out they weren’t exactly ‘Anonymous’.  

He never showed his face in the agency but there’d be a scrap of paper, a holotape, a (human) messenger and the tips  _always_  lead him to one place.

Goodneighbor.

And the cases were always the same.

Youngsters, some so wet behind the ears they almost squeaked. Ones that given the chance would quite easily slip through the cracks never to be seen again. The sorta ones that before the bombs fell would’ve had casefiles and been on milk cartons.  Nice kids, good kids, sweet kids.  Kids that had never done a thing wrong in their short lives.

 _Scared_ kids.

Ones with shaking hands and tear stained cheeks that _really just wanted to go home now_ and it’d been a stupid fight and actually their mother wasn’t so bad. Tearaways who realised their midnight lover wasn’t all they were cracked up to be. Kids after a thrill that realised sooner than they wanted to that actually this wasn’t all it was cracked up to be and this was actually scary. Ones that wanted to make a go of it as someone ‘Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know’ and finding themselves outgunned. Ones that decided to dip their toe in and found themselves having a bad trip.

And as Nick had learned, Scared kids rapidly turned into stupid kids given the chance.

And stupid kids didn’t always get to come home afterwards.

Kids that had families waiting for them.  Good families.

Kids that shouldn’t even put one toe anywhere near anywhere like this.

Kids that needed a warm drink, a place to spend the night and then in the morning the John and Jane Fawns would be sent home. Usually holding their folks in much higher esteem by the end of it.

Goodneighbor was ‘For the People, By the People’ but it was a haven for already lost souls, not ones that hadn’t even started out yet belonging to kids that even out in the Commonwealth had a chance for something better.

It was raining when he stepped into Goodneighbour, that was fitting he supposed.

He had the scrap of paper in his coat pocket.  A name, a place. That was all the notes tended to give.

“Hey Nick,” A voice came from the shadows.

“Hancock,”

“Funny how you just end up here huh?”

“Yeah…” He ran his fingers over the edges of the paper in his pocket,  “ _Just happen_ to get a tip off there’s yet another young runaway holed up here,”  

“Yeah real funny, that,”

“The Rexford again?” Nick fished a lighter from his coat and lit a cigarette. It was usually the Rexford,  sometimes The Third Rail but never the Memory Den.

“This one has a gun, pretty sure the kid aint got the stones to use it which makes me worry more,”

Nick turned to him, letting a puff of smoke disappear into the Goodneighbor night.

“Thanks for the tip,”  

“What tip?” 

Hancock shrugged and Nick smiled knowingly. 


End file.
